dimensioning holes with counter bores, etc
I have been doing industrial architectural drawings for along time, and it has been a long time since I had to use AutoCAD or BricsCAD to do drawings for a machinist When I have done that over the last 15 years, it has been using a program like SolidWorks that has extensive hole call-out features.
What I am currently puzzled by, is the issue of dimensioning counter-bores. Normally, in drafting you want a symbol that looks like a square U. Then a down arrow with a line at the top is used to indicate a depth measurement. But, I cannot find either of these as special symbols in BricsCAD's text editing. Attached is an image showing what I hope to do.
Of course, I can use a True-Type font that happens to have those symbols. But, I can't find them in any of the Winding fonts, and I don't want to use a font that a customer may not already have installed on their computer.
How do you all handle hole call outs and their symbols?
-Joe
0
Comments
-
This is the font file that I use: https://www.verisurf.com/gdt-fontI have to use the character map to find and copy the characters as they use different characters (the counter bore is an e with a tilde above it). I just copy the character and paste into the Mtext object for the leader and then change the font of the character in question to the newly installed Veriserf one.It would be awesome if these were default options in the BricsCAD mtext editor, I use them a lot and they're a bit cumbersome to use...Just don't forget to have the font available if you are sending out the dwg's...0
-
@Scott McKenzie:Just don't forget to have the font available if you are sending out the dwg's...In my experience, the font files, plotter definitions, etc, are ALWAYS lost at some point, and NEVER sent out when I request a drawing from another company. That is why a special font is just not an option.Perhaps I just draw the symbols as blocks using line entities, and when I type the text, I leave space for the symbol to be manually placed. An alternative, is just to use text description. E.g.1/4"Dia hole thru, with 1/2"Counter bore, 1/4" Deep.-Joe0
-
Yeah, I agree, it isn't the most elegant solution, if something is missed then your symbols become characters or other punctuation marks. One option, and it is ugly, is to explode the text - but once you do that, you are sunk.You could create your leader to call out the hole, and using the tab stops now available in the mtext editor create spaces in the text string wide enough for your symbols. Create the symbols manually as drawn entities and place them into position in the text string in the gaps created with the tab stops, then create a group of the text and symbols so that if one moves, they all move...0
-
Thanks for the grouping idea. I had not thought about that.-Joe0
-
You can also try to play around with mtext formatting. E.g stack a T and a V to get a down arrow.
Example (paste code in the command bar and select an mtext entity):
[code](vla-put-textstring (vlax-ename->vla-object (car (entsel))) "3 x Ø17 - {\\T0.75;{\\W1.5;LI}} Ø24 - {\\O\U+2193}8.8")[/code]0 -
... I forgot to mention that the result will of course depend on the text font. I have tested with Arial.0
-
Thank you Mr. CAD Wizard, it works perfectly. I figured out that the Counter bore sign was done with an L and an I, that had its character spacewalking reduced. But, I have not figured out the depth sign.I see the down arrow, but I cannot stack them with another character without putting the / sign. And even then, it does not like the down-arrow and puts a question mark instead. Apparently, the built in stacking routine is smart enough to know it should put numbers above and below, and you must put a / between them.I guess your code bypasses the standard routine and manually adds the codes to force them to stack. Right?-Joe0
-
I am not sure what you do exactly, but I have no problem stacking an arrow. You are right: you have to type a / sign, then select the characters you want to stack (including the /) and hit the appropriate button. The characters do not have to be numbers however. Note that the example represented by the code doesn't use staking but an 'overlined' arrow instead. If you select that portion of the mtext and look at the depressed buttons in the mtext editor you can see what is going on. I have not done anything programatically that cannot be done manually.
But I have to admit that I did some programmatic 'cleanup'. When I paste the down arrow from charmap.exe somehow the font changes to 'SimSun'. Although that arrow is longer and looks a little better I have removed the font change from the code in my previous post.0
This discussion has been closed.